Research

Teachers Mixed on Common Core, Support Blended Learning

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 02/09/15

More than nine out of 10 teachers in America report using technology in the classroom. Two-thirds said they support the idea of a blended classroom, where students spend part of the school day working with a teacher and part working on a computer. A similar number of teachers said they like the idea of requiring students to take at least one online course before they graduate.

These results and others came out of an "internal poll" given to the members of the Association of American Educators, a national, non-union professional membership organization founded in 1994. According to spokeswoman Alexandra Freeze, slightly more than a thousand teachers from all 50 states participated.

The Common Core isn't a big favorite among the country's educators. Slightly more than half said they have an "unfavorable" opinion about the learning standards. Only three out of 10 teachers said they believe the standards will improve the quality of education in their communities or state; 36 percent said they believe they'll have no impact; and 34 percent said they believe they'll have an "adverse effect."

Teacher training is an area of importance to the respondents. Thirty-seven percent of them said they didn't feel prepared to teach after graduating from college. Two thirds said they agreed with the idea of developing "alternative certifications" to allow professionals with science, technology, engineering or math degrees to teach in the classroom. And 76 percent said they agree with recent baseline recommendations from the National Council on Teacher Quality that advised requiring an admission grade point average of 3.0 or higher and requiring candidates to pass subject-matter tests as a requirement for gaining admission into teacher programs.